Guys, there’s a new Tony Hawk game coming out… and it’s a mobile game…

When I started hearing that Activision were working on a new Tony Hawk game, I got super exited, it could be Activision’s chance to bring Tony Hawk back to it’s glory days! Close to it anyway!

There weren’t many details about it at the time… and when more details were reviewed, it was my worst fear come true…

You guessed it, it’s ranting time! I sincerely hope this mobile trend dies off soon, I hope it will eventually dawn on people that they’ve been wasting their time and money on these abominations of interactive media! Seriously, remember when games like Shenmue, Super Mario 64 and Ape Escape were all the rage? Games that actually tried to push their hardware, gave us great looking games, and were, you know, fun?

Look where we are now, people are talking about a game made in less than a week, that involves tapping the screen to get a badly drawn bird get through pipes that were ripped from Super Mario World? Seriously?

I found out about an Andoid Emulator called Bluestacks which plays Android games on the PC, which I thought was cool, since there were some games I heard about, but wanted to play, so I managed to try them all… and I think I safely say, I haven’t missed much, they’re all god awful!
What makes them worse, is they’re blatant cash grabs, ads everywhere, microtransactions around every corner, I already made a rant on free to play games here, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but I’ll say this, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I’d much rather pay a large fee once, and have everything, then get 10% of the game for free!

Mobile platform are full of those games! I refuse to accept that that will be the future of gaming, I just can’t accept that! If that’s all the industry and offer in the future, than I’ll quit games once the last console dies, I refuse to reduce myself to playing on those… things!

People always make the arguement that Mobile Games are quicker and easier to pick-up, but so can handheld games, well, the 3DS anyway, sleep mode exists on consoles as well, you know…
Besides, phones get boring a minute or so after playing it, and even within that minute, I wish that I was playing something better. They’re even worse for long holiday or long trips, that’s where the PS Vita would shine, console gaming on the go may not sound appealing for short trips, but for long trips, or you’re off somewhere abroad, it’d be perfect!

Some people I’ve seen also make the argument that phones are cheaper, at first, they may be, but take into account contracts, monthly payments, you still have to give money after you buy the thing, even worse, is that that phone will last you a year tops, before Google upgrades Android for newer phones, and the latest games only work with that, my mum gave me her old phone while I was looking for a new one, it wasn’t even a year old, and already, there were a ton of recent apps that didn’t work with it!
Put it this way, let’s say you pay £100 for a new phone, top of the range! A year later, it’s useless, you can’t play the latest games, so you have to pay another £100 for another phone, and then the year after £100, and then another £100, and again, and again, and again… In the long run, they’re far more expensive!

In comparison, let’s look at, say, the PSP, it costed £200 at launch, which was in 2005, meaning it’s 9 years old (that old?), and it’s STILL getting games! The PSP got a version of FIFA 14 and PES 2014, and it isn’t dead just yet! You could have got a PSP at launch, and you could be playing it for 9 years without ever worrying about upgrading the hardware, sure, the PS Vita came out recently, but the PSP is still being supported to this day, sure, gradually, the PSP is dying, but that’s better than mobile where, when a new phone comes out, the old one immediately ceases support!

In short, phones costs you roughly £100 for 1 year (~£100/year). The PS Vita costs £150, and will probably last as long as the PSP, so 9+ years (£17/Year). Tell me, what sounds like the better deal?

Before you come at me with “Oh, but you’re getting a phone and a gaming machine, so it’s better value.”, you can buy a basic flip phone for £5 these days, £25 if you want a good one, and for phoning, I think they’re more reliable than smart phones, and plus, you don’t have to worry about breathing on the screen or getting sweat or anything else on the screen with a flip phone, and because you don’t have to worry about apps and having your phone become obsolete and useless, it could last you years. Also, it has Facebook and Twitter on it, so there!

“Ooh, But you need to pay for games on handhelds!”, yeah, which is better than free-to-play, you pay once, you get everything included (Except for Ridge Racer on the Vita from what I hear. (That was shocking Namco/Bandai!)), and plus, some Vita games nowadays for for a mere fiver brand new, and I’ve seen some 3DS games go for even less! For instance, Game had Tekken 3D for the 3DS go for £2 brand new during the January sales! Also, don’t even get me started on the deals you can get with used games from CEX!

…and that’s my rant over, Why anybody would go with mobiles over consoles is beyond me, but luckily, there’s a sign of hope, one of my cousins was once very pro-mobile, he was always playing games on his mobile, and I think he even mentioned that he might not ever get a console again… he wasn’t true to his word, as he recently got a 3DS XL, and he said to me that Flappy Bird was the best gaming gets on mobile, and recently said to me, and I quote Games are and always will be rubbish on mobiles.

It’s not just him, either, online, I’ve been reading about people who went through the same thing, once loved mobiles, now hates them. I think people are finally realising, the truth is finally dawning on them! I hope this is the beginning of the end of mobile gaming! Here’s hoping!